Fan behavior towards Barbra Banda
I attended the Gotham-Pride game in NJ last night and was shocked and disgusted by the fan conduct in my section (107). Multiple Gotham season ticket holders expressed bigotry towards Barbra Banda that stemmed from the racist, transphobic conspiracies that were spread about her after she earned the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year award last year. If you're unfamiliar, you can read more about this here.
I've never witnessed bigotry like this from NWSL fans before - in fact, what drew me in to the NWSL in the first place was the fandom's embrace of queer players and relationships. Last night's fan behavior was like a shock of cold water. One fan got pulled aside by security after he cheered for Banda falling down and yelled "she shouldn't be on the field anyway!" I was gratified to see security speak to him, but all he got was a warning. In the meantime, this really ruined the game for me, and made me feel really unsafe in my season ticket seat going forward.
I wanted to take the temperature of other fans on this, so I'm wondering -
Did any other fans at this game or other Pride games experience similar behavior? Should we all expect to see more of this?
Any suggestions on how to engage security if I see similar behavior in the future?
Specifically for Gotham fans, where do I need to sit to avoid being near gross racists going forward? 🤢
And I just wanted to encourage fans in other cities to be prepared for the possibility of this kind of hate when attending Pride away games throughout the season. It feels like Barbra could really use our support!
EDIT 11pm ET: Wow, thank you so much to everyone who commented or shared this or spoke with the club or otherwise helped amplify this. By now you might have seen that the league as well as both teams and the players' association have issued statements condemning the fans' behavior and promising that this will not be tolerated. I also got a call from Gotham's chief business officer, who asked for as many details as I was able to share so they can investigate further. He was not able to share what actions, if any, they plan to take with the fans responsible, but he did ask for physical descriptions of them, so I have to assume that further conversations with them are on the table. He also told me that the club reached out to the Pride to express regret that this happened and that they passed on a message to Barbra personally. And he told me that there IS a security text tip line that the club will be publicizing more prominently at future games.
Further, he assured me that he understands WHY this rhetoric was racist and transphobic (a nuance I had worried might get missed), and he said flat out that this is the opposite of the culture they are trying to build at Gotham. I felt really reassured by this conversation.
I would never have reached out to the club if you guys hadn't shown me that the fanbase feels strongly (as I do) that this kind of conduct is not welcome in our league. On a personal note, this has made me feel so much safer going back to games. Which, honestly, is a huge relief. Gotham games have been a safe space that I treasure, and it would have been heartbreaking to let some bigots take that away. So thank you for helping me have that again!